The cars that could have been April Fools' pranks.

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The cars that became a joke

31 Mar 2017David McCowen

Car companies clearly have a sense of humour.

While the industry is regularly responsible for giving consumers access to groundbreaking technology, sometimes it feels as though the joke's on us. Here's a handful of times car companies just had to be having a laugh.

Suzuki X-90

The idea seems somewhat sound today, but it was genuinely oddball in the 1990s.

We've now become accustomed to swoopily-styled SUVs thanks to the likes of BMW's X6 and the Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe, but Suzuki's X-90 was an entirely different beast.

Based on rugged all-wheel-drive running gear plucked from the compact Vitara crossover, the X-90 featured two doors, two seats and too-cute styling that called to mind curvy entry-level sports cars like the Ford Probe, Hyundai Coupe and Nissan NX.

The team responsible for Suzuki in Australia at the time said it "brings together the spirit of open-top sports cars with full fledged offroad performance", while we said it was a niche model for the Mambo generation.

Largely forgotten, the X-90 is a rare sight on the road today. But its spirit lives on in the many crossovers taking over Australian roads.

Nissan GT-R LM Nismo

Picture a racecar without its bodywork. Not a GT, touring or rally car, but a proper purpose-built machine designed to run in Formula 1 or Le Mans.

The massive, turbocharged engine sits just ahead of the rear wheels, mounted behind a snug-fitting cockpit. Naturally, there are skinny tyres up front and fat tyres at the back.

Now imagine that racecar with bodywork turned around 180 degrees. The result is fascinatingly close to what Nissan tried with the 2015 GT-R LM Nismo, a car that tried to beat Audi, Porsche and Toyota at Le Mans with a smaller budget. Using wildly creative engineering principles focused on its aerodynamics, Nissan designer Ben Bowlby created a car with a front-mounted engine and front-wheel-drive that freed up the rear of the car to serve as a giant wind tunnel, allowing air to pass through the GT-R rather than over or around it.

It almost worked.

Nissan revealed the machine at the Super Bowl in February before rushing the machine to the Le Mans 24 hour, where the GT-R's 336km/h top speed eclipsed more experienced rivals in testing.

But it wasn't strong in competition, as Nissan couldn't get the car's hybrid system to work properly, crippling its straight-line performance. Those skinny rear tyres also compromised it in the corners, where the car looked unstable at speed.

Nissan abandoned plans to race the car further, cutting its losses after one disappointing event.

HSV Avalanche

Holden and HSV could do no wrong around the turn of the millennium. On top of the sales charts with a strong Commodore range as well as hit cars such as the Monaro coupe, the brand was riding the crest of a wave, producing well-received concept cars while enjoying unrivalled success in local motorsport.

Ford hit back with the brilliant Territory SUV, the right car at the right time for a changing country.

Holden's answer was the Adventra SUV, a jacked-up, all-wheel-drive version of the regular Commodore wagon. Naturally, HSV had a crack at enhancing that car, applying its usual mix of more power, plastic bodykits, big brakes and huge wheels to a two-tonne machine it called the Avalanche.

Unfortunately, HSV's trademark power play was knobbled somewhat by the car's all-wheel-drive system, limiting power to 270kW and 475Nm – 15kW less than other models in the range.

Drive's Toby Hagon tested it at the time, finding that the Adventra's driving experience was "thunderingly uncouth" with "zero subtlety" – not what you want from an Aussie wagon priced from $73,990.

Too compromised to work properly on a track and not tough-enough for off-road exploring, the Avalanche sat in no-man's land, a miss-step in the brand's otherwise impressive history.

Hummer

Having fought for hearts and minds on the battlefields of Iraq, Hummer took its fight to suburban driveways under the guidance of Holden's parent company, General Motors.

What seems crass now – like dropping the kids at school using a Reaper drone – was also more than a little off key at the time. Available in the US in three sizes, the gargantuan, expensive and battle-proven H1 as well as the huge but more refined H2 and smaller H3 offerings, the latter pair arrived in time for SUVs to explode in popularity.

GM officially sold just one model, the Prado-sized "baby" H3 in Australia, where it was powered by a five-cylinder petrol engine largely rejected by local buyers. But we also received more than a few H2 models at the hands of private importers, described by one as "the big Tonka truck that your parents never bought you as a kid",

Drive tested the beast of Baghdad on the battlefields of Balmain, where it returned fuel economy approaching 30L/100km – twice what a decent-sized SUV might use.

It wasn't a surprise to see that increasingly fewer people wanted to drive around in a Team America prop, prompting GM to axe the brand in 2010.

Ssangyong Stavic

Surely this one had to be a dare.

Korea's Ssangyong won plenty of attention with its first people mover for Australia, mostly for its challenging design.

The brand's Australian arm said it appeared futuristic and unique, while Drive correspondent Tony Davis felt it looked as though it was "bolted together using bits of dead cars that have been dug up late at night". We'll side with him on this one.

The People mover's awkward front-end treatment, slabby sides and genuinely bonkers rear glasshouse were unlike anything else on the road in 2004.

Even the name was ugly. Sold overseas as the Rodius – a curious mashup of "road" and "zeus" – the Stavic was closer to "Odious" in both name and appearance.

It was better on the inside – where you couldn't look at it – or under the bonnet, where Mercedes-Benz underpinnings elevated it beyond the average MPV.

Still, could you see it parked in your driveway?

The Joke's on us:

Of course, there have been occasions when Drive has called it incorrectly, particularly when looking to the future.

Luxury SUVs

Back in 1997, Mercedes-Benz had just started building the ML-Class, BMW was finalising its upcoming X5 and Porsche was rumoured to be planning its own SUV.

The Sydney Morning Herald's motoring team may have missed the mark by saying that "as with most fashion accessories, posh 4WDs will invariably fall from favour".

BMW was the first brand to introduce a single controller for its in-car computer systems. Dubbed iDrive, the system was derided by Drive as adding "seven unnecessary steps to something which could be done with the press of one button".

A group of people asked to try the system said it was "diabolical", "totally irrational" and "ridiculous".

We didn't think it would catch on.

But Alfa Romeo, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus followed suit, while mainstream marques such as, Mazda and Renault have also adopted central control devices that don't require you to stretch for a touch screen.

Lately, BMW has introduced gesture control as a method of interacting with its systems without physically touching anything. It's not the most convincing technology on the road, adding extra effort to commends that could be done with the press of one button...

Premium pickups

We really weren't sure what Toyota was up to with a special-edition TRD HiLux that brought tough looks and 225kW supercharged power back in 2008, even if the regular HiLux was Australia's best-selling car in April of that year.

We questioned whether there were enough "cashed-up bogans" ready to pay a $10,000 premium – a minimum of $59,990 - for a tricked-out work ute with an extra 50kW of go. Few did, and the TRD HiLux program was cancelled after a year of sales.

That's a shame, as the big unit was well before its time. Today's top-end utes such as the Ford Ranger Wildtrack, Volkswagen Amarok V6 and Holden Colorado Z71 represent some of the most popular models in their respective lineups.

We weren't surprised to see Toyota return with a new take on the TRD HiLux in 2017, though it was a little disappointing to find it has no more power than a regular HiLux SR5.

There's more to come, as Mercedes-Benz is working on a high-end machine likely to cost close to $80,000, while Ford and Holden tuning arms Tickford and Walkinshaw Performance are preparing more powerful versions of the Ranger and Colorado that will continue in the spirit of Toyota's original.